


Love in a Photograph

by AlgaLenn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Coming Out, Humor, Inspired by Photography, M/M, Photographer Dean, Writer Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:43:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlgaLenn/pseuds/AlgaLenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Dean has been dreading this moment since he decided he wanted to be a photographer, he never imagined it would go like this.</p><p>In which John finally gets to see Dean's work and ends up seeing more than he was supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in a Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> I have a challenge I should be doing, but I saw this picture: http://tinyurl.com/lm9psra this idea came to my mind and [featherfluff](http://archiveofourown.org/users/featherfluff/pseuds/featherfluff) encouraged me to write it so here, enjoy my first AU (I never thought I would write an AU, this is so weird). Also, thanks to her for betaing my work <3

**Now**

Dean is pacing across the living room, running his hands though his hair frantically, eyes wide and panicked. He’s acting as if he had committed a terrible crime and the cops were about to burst through their door any second now and hang him right there, in the middle of the room.

But, of course, it’s not the cops the ones who are about to show at their doorstep and, while Dean swears over his dead body that what’s coming is going to be ten, hell maybe a hundred, a thousand times worst! Castiel is 99.9% sure he’s just over reacting.

“How the hell did you convince me to do this, Cas?” Dean asks the other man, stopping for a second to give him a maniac look and then going back to his pacing. Cas swears he’s going to create a trench in their floor if he doesn’t stop.

He needs to get Dean to calm down and he knows just the way to do it. He has to get his boyfriend on the couch first though.

Castiel sighs and massages his temples. “Well, it wasn’t really difficult, Dean. You do tend to say yes to everything I say after I let you suck my dick.” He says, standing up and reaching for his distressed man. Of course, Dean immediately relaxes in his arms, but Cas knows this is not enough, his boyfriend needs to be completely calm or tonight will really be a total catastrophe.

“Why exactly did I decide it was a good idea to date the nerdy English mayor with the most beautiful cock in the universe?” Dean asks as Castiel guides him to the couch and makes him lie down.

Cas shrugs and moves to sit between the other man’s legs. “Because, according to you, it ‘looks good in photos’.” He smiles as he says those words out loud. Cas remembers fondly the moment when Dean used that particular phrase with him for the first time –Yes, there were other times after the first one, apparently, that becomes a usual compliment when you’re dating a photographer-.

Dean grins. He too remembers fondly the situation. “The nerdy English mayor who liked to pose nude in college…” He teases Cas, knowing just how much that gets into his boyfriend’s nerves.

Castiel rolls his eyes and starts. “How many times will I have to tell you it was Gabriel who put those ads all over campus? I never wanted to do the shots.” He knows he still owes Gabriel for that, but he hates that Dean keeps reminding him that probably most of the people who knew him in college still think of him as ‘the English student  who liked to do nude shots’.

“You didn’t pose like you didn’t want to…”

Okay, that’s enough of that discussion for today. “Shut up and let me blow you.” Castiel says, almost commands, knowing that will make Dean change the topic.

The other man frowns and seems to only then realize the position they are in. “Wait, what? We don’t have time, angel...” Dean doesn’t try to get away from Castiel though and he certainly doesn’t stop him from undoing his belt and zipper.

Castiel checks his watch only to make sure Dean’s wrong. Given who’s about to come for dinner he really doesn’t want to take any chances. He might not be as nervous as Dean, but he is still a little nervous and he wants to make a good kind-of-first-impression, since the official first one wasn’t exactly nice.

“It’s 6:40, we still have 20 minutes.” Cas replies and then he goes back to work on the man’s jeans, moving them out of the way. “I know you Dean, if I suck you off you’ll be a lot more relaxed through this whole thing. Let me do this for you.” He looks up at his boyfriend with pleading eyes.

“Well, who am I to say ‘no’ to that face, right?” Dean shakes his head and bites his lip.

A minute later the photographer is letting out a broken moan while the ‘nerdy English mayor who liked to pose nude in college’ deep-throats him as if he’s life depends on it.

**A week ago**

Years have passed since the last time Dean has gone camping with Sam and his father. It isn’t as if they didn’t want to go, in fact, camping at least once every spring was one of the only family traditions they had, one that they always tried to keep alive because of their mother. No, both brothers really enjoyed camping with their father, the problem was it became difficult to do it when they moved away for college and then Dean decided to stay in New York and Sam found a regular job on the other side of the country… Plane tickets aren’t exactly cheap –of course, Dean doesn’t have to worry about that, he has the Impala, but Sam doesn’t like the idea of driving 15 hours straight-, so really, it isn’t their fault that they haven’t done it sooner.

But hey! Here they are now and Dean couldn’t be happier. It also has been years since the last occasion in which he had so much time to photographically document nature life –when you’re living in the city it is something quite difficult to do, Central Park is nowhere near Yellowstone- and Dean is _really_ making every second count. It’s only been half a day and he has already used a complete 16gb memory –he has three more, but he has the feeling he will have to calm down or change from RAW to JPEG and that isn’t exactly an option he wants to consider- and Sam has told him three times that he should leave the camera aside and join him and John fishing since that was the plan when they decided to finally go camping again.

Dean never considered fishing to be part of his plan when he said ‘yes’ to camping; his plan all along was to take photos. He can’t avoid it, it’s his passion.

For Dean the world comes to life when he sees it through the camera lens. It becomes easier to understand how things work because his senses are focused in the detail the camera shows him, that small portion of the word that has the capacity of telling the most extraordinary stories, stories that most likely would be lost if one could see beyond the frame. When Dean takes photos he lets his imagination run wild. He sees a rift to another universe in a small crack in the wall of a dirty alley, a werewolf crying for their loved one in a wolf howling at the moon, an angel in a nude man posing against the blue sky… When Dean is behind the camera he is in his element, he feels free and alive, truly alive; there’s not a lot of things that make him feel that way -one is spending time with Cas, the other is eating apple pie like the one his mom used to make- and he really isn’t going to give that up to waste time hoping a fish will be stupid enough to bite a worm wrapped around a hook.

He wouldn’t change his time shooting for anything in the world right now, he’s having one of those moments, one of those his mother liked to call ‘magic moments’. This is not his favorite kind of photography, he usually works with people, either models or regular people in the street, he likes to capture the life in the city and show its secrets through his work, but taking pictures of birds, animals, insects, flowers… It makes him feel close to his mother. She was a genius. Her old albums always inspired Dean, she had a way to make the images turn to life, they made you feel as if what you were looking at was the real thing and not just a picture.

Dean takes another hundred photos with a new memory and then goes back to where he parked the car and they are supposed to build their tent. He doesn’t expect his father to be there waiting for him with a fishing rod.

“I knew you would have to come sooner or later.” He says, grinning as if he thinks his son is finally there to put his precious camera down and join them for what probably is the less exciting sport the man had come up with.

Dean rolls his eyes and chuckles a little. His father is going to be disappointed. “Just came to get another lens, I wanna do some macros of flowers for a new series I’m plannin’.” He explains as he opens the driver’s door and gets inside his beloved car.

“If I didn’t know it’s because of your mother, I would say that’s one of the gayest things I’ve ever heard you say, son.”

Dean tenses visibly and he thanks God he’s inside the car where his father can’t see him –John Winchester is an expert when it comes to reading people, Dean still can’t believe he hasn’t found out he isn’t exactly straight. He laughs nervously. If his dad really knew some of the real most gay things he has said during his life he would have disowned him ages ago.

John taps the Impala’s shotgun window twice, which startles Dean into almost dropping the lens while he changes it. The younger man’s heart stops for a second –he almost had to sell a kidney to buy that lens- and then he glares at his father and rolls down the window. “I’m seriously not gonna waste the daylight I have left trying and failing to catch dinner. You and Sam are the ones good at that.” He says, moving his eyes back to his camera.

“I know…” He hears his dad sigh as he puts away the objective he was using.  “I was actually wondering if you would let me see some of your work, that’s why I was waiting for you.”

Dean bites his lip and glances briefly at his father. He has been dreading this day since he picked a camera for the first time.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want his father to see his photos… No, who is he trying to fool? It is _exactly_ that, he really doesn’t want his father to see his photos. Dean is afraid John will be disappointed, that he will tell him his work is not as good as his mom’s –he knows it really isn’t, but knowing it and hearing if from his own father are two different things-, that’s why he has made himself promise he would never show any of his work to him unless he asked to see it and so until this day he has never done it.

He wants to refuse, tell him some excuse and forget this ever happened, he knows his father won’t push further. But a promise is a promise, even if it’s with himself, so he just replies with: “Yeah, wait a sec.” And he searches for the oldest photos. The memory he’s currently using already had a hundred or so pictures of a dancing couple he took yesterday in Central Park. Dean prefers his father to see those, because it’s different to what his mother used to do and there’s less of a chance John will compare him with her. Once he finds the first photo he took of the couple–or rather, the last one- he signals his father to come closer.

“This was yesterday. That’s Benny and Andrea, they asked me to photograph a small presentation they did.” Dean explains as he takes in the shot better and smiles. He hasn’t had time to select the ones he liked yet, but he already knew he loved this one in particular. It was a close-up to their faces, they’d just finished dancing and were both smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. Is one of those pictures where you can tell the protagonists have a romantic relationship because the love they have for each other couldn’t show more clearly in their eyes. Dean is a sucker for that kind of photos.

When Dean looks up at his father he’s surprised to find John is smiling as well. “It’s a great shot, Dean.” He says, sparing a quick glance to his son and then going back to focus in the camera. He laughs a little. “Is good to know you have gotten better since the time you used to work in the yearbook.” Dean groans. Does he really have to remind him of his dark time?

The younger Winchester is about to reply when his phone rings, making him smile widely when he recognizes the first notes of Houses of the Holy. He hands his camera to his father and grabs the phone to check –not that he really needs to do that, given the ringtone- that yes, Cas is calling him –he probably misses him already, the dork-. “I gotta answer this, you keep looking.” He tells John as he gets out of the car. His father is so engrossed in the pictures he doesn’t seem to notice him leaving.

“Hey, angel.” Dean finally answers once he’s sure he is far enough so that his father won’t be able to hear him. “Miss me already?”

Dean can practically hear the roll of Castiel’s eyes when he replies. “No… I’m just checking on you, making sure a snake hasn’t bitten you already.”

Dean shakes his head and laughs silently, not wanting Castiel to hear him. That man already thinks he’s too funny, he doesn’t need encouragement. “You know?Don’t need you babysitting me. I can take care of myself.”

Castiel, the fucker, actually laughs for a good ten seconds before finally replying. “Barely. Anyway, something interesting to tell me or you want me to hang up so that you can keep taking photos?”

The Winchester smiles fondly. The man really knows him, what he never gets is he would never ask him to hang up. “Actually, there’s something interesting. My dad is seeing the photos I took yesterday morning.”

_“What?”_

Dean grins. He can imagine his lovers face, his eyes are probably wide open with surprise and his jaw is touching the floor. “Yeah, those I took of Benny and Andrea.”

 _“Dean, didn’t you use that same memory for your last session with me the night before?”_ Why does Cas sound panicked all of the sudden? Dean frowns a little, confused.

“Yeah, I did, why are you ask- Oh shit.”

“Dean? Is there something you would like to share with me?”  The photographer hears his father say and his face goes paper white.

He’s fucked.

***

Seeing a photo of a naked man in his son’s camera isn’t really what surprises John Winchester. He knows nude photography is something a lot of people work with and, given what Sam has told him about Dean’s tendencies when it comes to shooting, it was actually something he might have been expecting to see at some point if his son decided to show him more things he has done. So it’s not that, no. What really has him shocked is how similar these photos are to those Mary used to take to him just to have some fun when they were young.

The pictures seem casual and, to some people, might even look unplanned or even as being simply an unusually lucky snapshot, but John can see how much thought his son has put behind the photographs, the effort to make the pictures seem effortless.

John is sure that Dean did this particular series of photos with the idea of domesticity in mind. It simply shouts that concept. The naked man resting on a bed, hugging a pillow, just one eye open and smiling lazily at the camera. The naked man sipping on a mug of coffee. The same man, still naked, sitting on a couch, feet over a coffee table, and reading a book. It’s as if his son was trying to capture slices of the life of this particular man with these photos and he did an excellent job, John feels as if he has known this man for his whole life.

He would think it’s just another project his son has been working on if it wasn’t for the fact that the place where the pictures were taken is Dean’s apartment and the man looks awfully comfortable there. There’s also the way he looks at the camera, at the person who is _behind_ the camera. Some things you just can’t fake. That’s why he’s not surprised at all when he sees the last photo –or well, the first one taken with that memory-, in fact, inside his mind he is congratulating himself because he has always wondered if his son was attracted to men and now he has the irrevocable proof that shows he was absolutely right to believe that.

The photo in question is a selfie of the mysterious man and Dean kissing –how do you  take a selfie with a professional camera? Is it even possible?-. The kiss is just a peck of lips and they are smiling, their eyes closed. John is sure he has never seen his soon look so happy and that makes him smile too.

Dean has found it, true happiness, just like what he used to have with Mary.

***

Okay, Dean can do this, he only has to come up with a good lie, lying is something he has always been good at. It’s easy, he just has to lie. To his father. About Cas. Nope, take that back, Dean can’t do this. He can’t lie about his boyfriend; he hates the idea of lying about the love of his life almost as much as he hates the idea of lying _to_ the love of his life.

Well, then he will tell the true! Not the whole true, of course, just part of it. Yeah, that will work, it has to work.

Dean puts his phone in his pocket and turns around to walk back to where his father is waiting for him with his camera in hand and an unreadable expression on his face. “You found the other photos, didn’t you?” The photographer tries for a nonchalant tone but he still sounds a bit nervous. He hopes his father won’t notice. “They are for a project I’m working on.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really?” He says and then he’s turning the camera so that Dean can see the photo he was looking at. “That one two? It doesn’t look like you took it.”

No, of course he didn’t take that particular photo, he hates to appear in photos, his place is behind the camera. No, that photo was Castiel’s idea and he took it, he hadn’t even warned Dean when he did it. They had been making out lazily in bed and Castiel had grabbed the camera without Dean noticing and taken the photo, Dean is actually surprised it came out the way it did since his boyfriend wasn’t exactly paying attention to what he was doing.

Now he has no explanation. There’s no way he can get himself out of this mess.

Dean might have spend a couple of minutes standing there, frozen and wondering if his father would take the Impala away from him once he disowned him, because suddenly John is shaking him out of his nightmare.

“Hey!” He looks actually concerned.  “I’m happy for you.”

“Wait, what?” Dean has gone crazy, there’s no other way to explain this, because there’s no chance his father just said that. And, on top of everything, now he is laughing too. How can he be laughing at a time like this? Or maybe that’s also part of Dean’s hallucinations…

“Now, I would like to meet him, in person, with clothes on.”

**Now**

Dean comes with a broken moan of Castiel’s name and his boyfriend closes his eyes as his own orgasm hits him –yes, he came in his pants, that ‘s how hot Dean looks when he lets the other man make him fall apart with only his mouth-. Castiel swallows the photographer’s hot load, not letting himself miss a drop, and then he moves up Dean’s body and kisses him softly, letting the other man taste himself in his mouth.

Cas can tell Dean is a lot more relaxed now as he lazily wraps his arms around his waist to keep him in place. Well… They still have what? Another ten minutes? And it’s not like John is a punctual person, Dean has told him so…

Both men close their eyes and let themselves bask in the afterglow. They barely notice how time goes by, too content with staying wrapped in each other’s arms to care about the minutes. For another half an hour everything is calm and perfect.

Then the doorbell pulls both men back into reality –see? Not a very punctual man.

“Shit.” Dean gently pushes Cas off him and fumbles with his underwear and trousers, making himself look more presentable. Castiel just smiles fondly at him. “Thanks for that, babe.” The taller man says and then he leans forward to kiss Cas one last time before taking his hand and standing up, pulling the other man with him.

They make it to the door and Castiel opens it to find John Winchester carrying a bottle of wine and wearing a wide smile on his face. He finds it to be a bit odd because, given what Dean has told him of his father, Cas never expected him to be a man who grins.

“Hey, dad.” Dean says, smiling nervously at his father and making him come into their apartment.

“Hi, sorry I’m late, I had some trouble finding a taxi and my hotel isn’t exactly close. I still don’t understand what is that you like about New York.” John replies, handing Dean the bottle of wine.  He turns to Cas then and offers him his hand to shake, which Castiel takes with pleasure. “So you are Castiel… It’s nice to see you with clothes on.” He says and Cas face turns red. “Now, what are we having for-”

After John stops talking mid-sentence and raises an eyebrow, it takes Castiel a second or two to realize his boyfriend’s father is staring at his crotch. He frowns before following his gaze and finding out why it got the older man’s attention.

Now, Castiel has experienced humiliation a thousand times during his childhood and even during part of his adulthood, with a brother like Gabriel he has gotten used to it, but _this?_ No, he can’t think of a moment in his life when he has felt as mortified as he is now. He has completely forgotten he came in his pants and now there’s a clearly visible wet spot in his jeans. So much for making a nice first impression.

 “I- Uh… Excuse me.” The blue-eyed man stutters, before practically running to the bathroom.

Dean watches his boyfriend leave with a helpless expression and then turns to face his father once again, scratching the back of his neck. “So, uh… I was going to make burgers?”

***

“Well… That wasn’t so bad after all.” Castiel says as he wraps his arms around his boyfriend from behind, resting his chin on the taller man’s shoulder.

John left about ten minutes ago because Dean insisted that he didn’t have to stay to clean up, so now Dean is washing the dishes while Castiel watches. He would help but Dean doesn’t want him to, because it’s his turn to do it and he doesn’t want to break the fragile balance they have created after almost six months of living together and leaving the dirty dishes pile up in the sink, waiting for Casper the Friendly Ghost to clean them.

Dean huffs in faked annoyance. “Yeah, if you forget the part where you decided to point out my fly was open.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Dean, your father saw me with a stain of cum in my pants, you’re in no position to complain here.” The blue-eyed man can tell the exact moment when his boyfriend decides there’s no point in arguing about that because Cas will most definitely win. It makes him smile. “Just admit it, it wasn’t as bad as you were expecting it to be.”

“Okaaaay. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be.”

Castiel is right, except for those two mortifying moment dinner turned out great in the end and, though Dean isn’t looking forward to any of this happening again, he is happy his father finally met his angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are my life support <3


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